The Five Stages of Grief
by ProxyPromethea
Summary: or: How Batman Got Her Groove Back. Prompt: Batman becomes a woman, involuntarily. Diana helps him out. Rated for violence and language. An exploration of gender identity, with a hint of romance.
1. Denial

**Warnings (this chapter):** language, perfunctorily beta'd  
**Prompt:** Bruce becomes a woman, Diana helps him out. Diana/genderswapped!Bruce  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wonder Woman, Batman, or any of the other DC characters, settings, or histories that appear in this work. I also do not own the quotes that inspire the titles of the chapters.  
**Author's Notes:** This is one of the first fanfics I had written in a while (though I've written a few more since). I'd love some constructive feedback and comments just to help me improve. That being said, I know this is not very racy and whatnot (which is what I think was intended), but the prompt sort of ran away with me. I really liked writing this. Thanks to my special unintentional beta/BFF, who gave me the confidence to post this. Considering this was originally supposed to be a comment fic, chapters **do** get longer as I moved away from that mentality. This can also be found on my LJ, under the same pen name.

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**1. Self-mastery comes. . . .**

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_It_ happened with no fanfare, no warning, just-

One day, Batman blinked and was no longer Batman.

But of course even something as relatively harmless as _suddenly growing a vagina_ couldn't take place in the privacy of Wayne Manor, but in the middle of a goddamn Justice League briefing.

Batman liked to think of himself as a master of control: unflappable when faced with even the weirdest of situations, quite an accomplishment considering some of his enemies ̶ and allies. To be perfectly honest, this didn't even rank in the top ten of the most unusual scenarios the Caped Crusader had been in. There was. . . . no reason to panic.

None at all.


	2. Anger

**Warnings (this chapter): **language, violence, sexism, perfunctorily beta'd

**Prompt:** Bruce becomes a woman, Diana helps him out. Diana/genderswapped!Bruce

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wonder Woman, Batman, or any of the other DC characters, settings, or histories that appear in this work. I also do not own the quotes that inspire the titles of the chapters.

**Author's Notes:** Same as the first- Constructive criticism and comments welcome and appreciated. Thank you to my pseudo!beta/real!BFF. This chapter was kind of iffy for me. Pronouns are icky. I tried to clear up ambiguity as much as possible. I played around with spacing between the lines as a tool for emphasis, but FF doesn't show it like the LJ version does. Once again, this can also be found under the same pen name there.

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**2. He who angers you. . . .**

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Exactly three weeks, six days, and seventeen hours passed before the Justice League found the culprit.

Exactly three weeks, six days, and sixteen hours passed before she did.

The scumbag would have been easier to flush out, she reasoned, if this wasn't the first stunt the man had pulled.

New villains always pulled shit like this to try and make their mark; it's just most stuck to blowing up buildings and taking banks hostage as their introduction to the world of crime.

Just her luck she had to catch the attention of an original.

Speaking of luck, this guy's had just run out.

The criminal hit the wall of the abandoned glass factory with a bang, the crunch so audible she wasn't sure if the only thing that broke was the plaster.

"What did you do to me?"

A punch to his sternum. He slid down to the floor, moaning through a bloody smile.

The man hoisted himself up, arms shaking as he pushed off the floor pitifully; she almost considered helping him.

Almost.

"What do you _mean_ what did I do?"

He grinned now in a mockery of coy, teeth yellow, and despite her keen mind she couldn't tell if the mottled color was natural, or a trick of the moonlight streaking in from a broken skylight.

World's Greatest Detective.

The cape flashed in that same moonlight, shrouding her in the night-black until all that remained were glinting eyes and soft lips.

The cape dwarfed her, and she knew if this had been a real fight it would be dangerous to wear it. Suicidal, almost.

Caped Crusader.

"I've done what every criminal in the world dreams of doing! I've done it! Me!"

Arms waving, gesturing madly.

Stalking closer. Moving away from the light and covering the man in shadows. The glass that lined the wall of the shipping room stands silently, reflecting in broken shadows the scene unfolding.

Dark Knight.

Her hand shot out to drag the criminal up and to her, and his hands came to encircle her gauntlet, loose on her hand.

He leaned in, and she could smell the blood and the rancid sweat and the unadulterated glee.

"I _killed_ The Batman."

Batman.

She dropped him.

A kick to the head. He flew back, and this time she knew the snap she heard had nothing to do with the mirror he crashed into.

Out came a batarang, small and big in her hand. It was sharp, and it would do.

She raised the batarang high in the air. . . .

She brought it down. . . .

Onto an empty floor.

"Batman!"

She did not turn right away, fascinated by the way the blood-the only substance below the sharpened blade-mixed with the grime of the warehouse floor, spreading out from beneath.

When she did, she noticed Wonder Woman and Superman stood in front of the now-begging crook.

They were _protecting_ the criminal.

"You don't do this, Batman," Superman came closer, reaching a hand out to take the batarang away. The confidence in his ability to diffuse the situation bled through his deep voice, "You don't _kill_ people."

"Don't call me Batman."

She pulled away from her friend, clutching the batarang like a lifeline.

"You're feeling lost. Your body isn't yours. You're angry, and it's understandable." She watched as Wonder Woman came around Superman.

Her hands came up in a placating gesture, before suddenly the batarang was wrenched from her hand and a disarming punch sent her sprawled to the floor, blood all over her back.

Her back. Not Batman's. . . .

An eye twitch from behind the cowl. She out to get around to fixing its size.

She needed to get back to being her proper size.

It was now her turn to raise herself up, to look at Wonder Woman, who stood there unapologetic, like she hadn't just sent one of the fiercest fighters on Earth to his knees.

"And who said you understand what I'm going through?"

Wonder Woman raised an eyebrow.

"Who said I can't try?"

Wonder Woman reached down, and helped her up.


	3. Bargaining

**Warnings (this chapter):** language, violence, sexism, perfunctorily beta'd  
**Prompt:** Bruce becomes a woman, Diana helps him out. Diana/genderswapped!Bruce  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wonder Woman, Batman, or any of the other DC characters, settings, or histories that appear in this work. I also do not own the quotes that inspire the titles of the chapters.  
**Author's Notes:** As always, constructive criticism and just general comments are encouraged and welcome. Thank you, pseudo!beta/real!BFF.

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**3. Compromise makes a good umbrella. . . .**

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"You can't keep wearing your old costume, it doesn't suit you."

The presence at her back rarely disappeared these days. Whether patrolling Gotham or up in the Watchtower, someone was always right behind her. Superman, The Flash, Green Arrow, hell. . . . even _Aquaman_ had dropped in, and always with some story about needing a hand or being in the area.

Bullshit.

"Don't you have some truth or justice to be spreading around, Diana," she forced out through gritted teeth before sweeping the feet out from under a knife-wielding opponent.

Wonder Woman jumped off the fire escape, heels clacking on dirty pavement as she landed in the alley. She didn't belong here, not in her bright red and blue and gold. Gotham chewed up red and blue and gold; Gotham spit out maroon and bruised and dulled. The jibe remained unanswered. Instead, Wonder Woman only came to lean on an alley dumpster, wrinkling her nose in slight distaste but otherwise silent.

Her eyes hurt from looking at the Amazonian, so she shifted them back to the task at hand.

One of the gang came up from behind, and she quickly dispatched him and his other three gang mates.

Wonder Woman simply stood and watched, her face blank. It was. . . unusual, and not just for Wonder Woman.

"You know, when the others come to pay me visits recently, they try and get in the way, handle things themselves."

Wonder Woman smirked, choosing to stand beside her as they both surveyed the unconscious bodies. "I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult or not."

The criminals were tied up with ease, their pockets rummaged through and their cell phones searched for information. "It wasn't one."

"You seemed to be handling things fine without my help."

She gave Wonder Woman a look, and for the first time out of battle she could see why Diana earned that title.

The alley way was not quiet, as nothing ever could be in Gotham. Rats scurried under foot, and a siren blared in the distance, wailing for a hero to come and help. . . .

Wailing for its hero.

She unhooked the grappling hook from her belt. It hadn't occurred to her, _really _occurred to her, just how loose the belt was on her tinier waist until now.

Wonder Woman absentmindedly gestured to where the sound came from, "Gotham needs you."

She shook her head and began to raise her grappling hook towards the sky. "Gotham needs _Batman._"

Wonder Woman scoffed.

"But thanks. I'll. . . . I'll get to work on the suit."

She pulled the trigger, and away she flew.

Wonder Woman waited in the alley until the police came to formally arrest the gang members. She waited, using the shadows to hide herself as they loaded the criminals into the cars, most of whom were dazedly protesting their innocence, despite the drugs and weapons found on their person. And there, in the alley, amidst the flashing blue and red lights of the Gotham squad cars, Wonder Woman stood until Gotham was as silent as it would ever be.

Wonder Woman smiled wide, and flew away.


	4. Depression

**Warnings (this chapter):** language, sexism, violence, mentions of death, perfunctorily beta'd  
**Prompt:** Bruce becomes a woman, Diana helps him out. Diana/genderswapped!Bruce  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wonder Woman, Batman, or any of the other DC characters, settings, or histories that appear in this work. I also do not own the quotes that inspire the titles of the chapters.

**Author's Notes: **Constructive criticism and general comments are welcome, encouraged, and loved dearly. Thanks again to my pseudo!beta/real!BFF, who read this and encouraged me to post it despite my own misgivings and cowardice.

I've always taken offense when people tell me that a woman can't fight as well as any of her male peers simply because the average woman is weaker than the average man in physical strength. It's always bugged me that a generalization about a whole sex automatically makes people assume that one member of the sex is an example of the generalization. It pisses me off because it's not true, and sometimes I've heard it from people who should know better than that and who seem to think that they do know better. That's the mindset I had going into this chapter, and I hope this helps with understanding where I, as the writer, am coming from and the direction I've been heading with this story.

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**4. The greatest griefs. . . .**

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Bruce Wayne was dead.

Bruce Wayne was shot to death in an alley in a mugging years ago.

So when the papers released the news that Gotham's Most Eligible Bachelor had gone missing after his private jet crashed over the Atlantic Ocean on a return business trip, presumed dead, the only people who cared were those who didn't hear the first time around.

Batman was dead.

Batman was set ablaze surrounded by his closest allies and friends just two months ago.

So when a woman with a soft, small face and hard, large muscles suddenly sat where he had once been in the costume that had once been his but now was too large and too wrong, to the shock and slight amusement of his closest allies and friends, the woman who had once been Batman wondered why nobody cared that Batman was dead.

"Batman-"

"Diana." The sound of her own voice made her cringe, so foreign to her ears. A higher tone meant less intimidation factor.

The door to the woman's-no, _Batman's_-private room slid open further as Wonder Woman moved closer to the desk strewn with Batman's old weapons.

Not her weapons. _Batman was dead_.

Wonder Woman placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, her grip covering what had been a broad shoulder. A slighter frame meant less force behind the punches and the kicks.

"Bruce," Diana removed her hand and tried again, whispering the name as if anything louder would cause the woman to combust.

Like he had. Batman _was_ _dead_.

"That's not my name Diana, you know better," she said as she spun around to face the figure silhouetted against the hallway's light, tiara and armbands gleaming as Wonder Woman shifted slightly on her feet. Added curves meant different ways of taking a hit.

"Then what would you have me call you? You lash out when any of us try calling you Batman!"

Anything but that name. Batman was _dead._

But the woman didn't respond in words, instead she stood and made as if to physically push Wonder Woman from the room, when she noticed she had to look up slightly just to stare into the Amazon's eyes. Diana stared back, and her eyes seemed to glint just as her tiara did. The shorter height meant leaps carried more danger and less distance covered.

She shoved Wonder Woman, and Wonder Woman shoved back, sending her careening back into the chair.

"You have always," Wonder Woman started, crossing her arms, "been a great fighter. Your status as a human being, without special powers and without extraordinary origin, you have always considered to be a point of fault. You see yourself as less than the rest of the League because of this so-called failure of strength."

The woman held perfectly still as Wonder Woman closed the remaining distance, placing her two hands on either arm of the chair and leaning down until only an inch of distance remained between the two.

"And now," Diana's breath ghosted over the woman, "you think that this new status has given you another point of fault. You see yourself as less capable now, but dare not to speak these fears aloud for fear of being seen as prejudiced or weak."

The woman tried to avoid leaning up to follow Wonder Woman as she moved away, standing now by the open door.

"The only weakness you have comes not from your humanity or from your gender, Sister. It comes from you."

And with this parting statement, Wonder Woman was gone.

Sister.

A different body meant learning how to fight all over again.

_Batman_ was dead.


	5. Acceptance

**Warnings (this chapter):** language, serious discussion of transgender themes, perfunctorily beta'd  
**Prompt:** Bruce becomes a woman, Diana helps him out. Diana/genderswapped!Bruce  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wonder Woman, Batman, or any of the other DC characters, settings, or histories that appear in this work. I also do not own the quotes that inspire the titles of the chapters.

**Author's Notes: **Finally! It's done. I _really_don't know how I feel about this entire work. But I'm posting it for completeness sake. Explanation of why I wrote this below.

I really wanted this work to show Batman sort of losing his male body, and in a sense having to grieve over that loss. Gender identity, to many people, is a huge part of who they are, and to suddenly wake up and find you're no longer entirely the person you always identified yourself as can be very jarring. But also, I kind of wanted to explore why Batman losing a male body and gaining a female body might be uncomfortable for Batman on another level. I wanted to show this Batman not as someone who was just upset about their identity being changed, but as someone who does have some assumptions of what women are capable of and what women represent in spite of working with so many strong women daily. I'm not saying this is how Batman is, or that I always interpret Batman as a character who has these latent opinions of women, but that I wanted to use this character who represents what we as a society view as masculinity and place this character into a situation where all these traits that we interpret as masculine are still there, and they haven't changed even if the physical body looks different. I intended the title of this chapter not to really deal with acceptance as in a full acceptance of what's happened and what it means in terms of these new transgender feelings Batman has (though there is a sense of acknowledgement that Batman _does _feel transgendered, and that it's OK to feel this way), but to refer to an acceptance of what it means to be masculine versus feminine and what it means to be a woman as a whole.

As with this entire story, the chapters can also be found on my LJ under the same pen name. There are more fics, none DC for right now, on my LJ that I'll slowly but surely be also archiving here.

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5. **Why do you stay in prison. . . .**

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The new outfit moved well.

The chest material did not have the same bulk, and the ears on the cowl pointed up a bit more, but the utility belt held more and the boots had greater spring to them.

When Flash had seen it, he made a quip about making the symbol on the chest pink instead of yellow. She had promptly demonstrated the advantage to having heeled boots over flats by stepping on his foot.

Passing through the halls of the Watchtower-_her_ Watchtower-she stopped in front of doors that should seem more familiar than they did.

Had she really never gone over here before. . . .

Before. . . .

A new, fitted gauntlet hovered over the door, before she shook her head and simply entered.

The whir of the door didn't pull Wonder Woman from her thoughts, or from where she stood looking at a Grecian sword and shield mounted on the wall. She entered anyways, coming closer to stand next to the Amazonian, and in a brief moment of humor she noted that the living quarters appeared almost Spartan in nature.

The two of them stared side by side into the polished shield, neither one willing or needing to break the silence. Nevertheless, it was eventually broken.

"You were born of clay."

Wonder Woman tilted her head forward a bit, eyes focused on the shield and voice as strong as a sword when she replied.

"I was."

"Your body isn't. . . to you it doesn't. . . it's not. . . it doesn't feel. . . natural."

Wonder Woman's gaze shifted to the sword; her voice took on a guarded quality.

"No. I suppose it does not."

"Have you ever felt—"

"Yes."

They stood in companionable silence once more. To one it felt as if a weight had been taken from her shoulders; to the other, it felt as if for the first time a weight had been placed there.

"Diana," she turned, and in seeing her do so Wonder Woman turned as well.

To her, it seemed as if Wonder Woman wanted to say something, but did not know how, and with clarity she realized what it was.

"It's okay," she breathed out, "Call me Batman."

And when their lips met, brief and soft and sweet and strong, they did not close their eyes, because for the first time. . . .

It felt as if their eyes were truly open.


End file.
